


To Trust

by itsalwaystheapocalypse



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Happy Sex, Light Bondage, M/M, Safe Sane and Consensual, Shameless Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:20:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22154665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsalwaystheapocalypse/pseuds/itsalwaystheapocalypse
Summary: I received a request for Endurance Kell and Holland smut.And lo, I have provided.This may not make much sense to anyone who hasn't read Endurance - to those who have, you can consider this was Kell and Holland were doing prior to Chapter 38.This is pretty shameless smut, but also... it's really sweet.(And actually a hint at a big plot thing coming up!)
Relationships: Kell Maresh/Holland Vosijk
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	To Trust

The circle of black leather, thin and shining and with the small circle of silver, dropped without fanfare onto the top of the book Holland was reading.

When he did not immediately react, the length of matching black leather he often wrapped around his wrist followed - first the soft  _ thunk _ of the silver clasp at the end, followed by the slither of the leather itself.

"You have covered the words I was reading," Holland said, but all his work to sound annoyed was somewhat undone by the way his breath hitched, just a little, to see the look in Kell's eyes when his own raised to meet them. 

Kell smiled, not quite nervously, and tilted his head. “That was the idea, Holland.”

One of Holland’s hands found its way up, fingering along the soft black leather Kell wore around his neck when they were in front of the Danes and more often than not removed the moment he entered Holland’s room. “Why these?” He asked, softly.

He had put this on Kell when he hung, still bleeding from his new mark, barely awake and terrified. He had used the leash to make him crawl to him. It had been a tool used against Kell, again and again-

His thoughts were interrupted when Kell said, in a low voice, “I want you to put it on me.”

Holland’s fingertips stilled where they were resting on top of the leather. “You what?”

“I… want you to put that on my neck. Both parts.” Kell swallowed, and Holland caught the uncertainty in it, the slightest tremor in the words. Kell’s hands were at his sides, but one index finger and thumb were worrying at the hem of his shirt, in a way he probably thought Holland did not notice.

_ With the time I have spent looking at you, there is nothing I do not notice. _

Holland was very still, but his body - a body that had, before Kell, largely given up on anything that he might actually want to have happen to it, might choose - warmed to the idea of what Kell was requesting quickly, and he shifted in his chair, picking the collar up in his hand, undoing the buckle at the back while Kell watched him.

The pale skin was flushed, coppery-bright hair falling over his black Antari eye. 

“You’re asking me to do this?” He had heard him. He knew he had asked for it - still, he wanted… some kind of reassurance. “This is trust, Kell.”

“I know it is.”

“I haven’t earned this trust from you.”

“Holland…” Kell’s sighed, exasperated, and moved closer, taking the arms of Holland’s chair in each hand and scraping it across the floor to turn him away from the table. “Sometimes it isn’t about what you’ve earned.”

“Then what is this about?” Holland asked, low, his accent getting stronger as Kell dropped to his knees on the floor, hands sliding over Holland’s knees and shifting them apart, lifting his chin to bare the skin of his neck. 

Holland could not seem to stop himself - his hands moved all on their own to fasten the collar around Kell’s neck. And the other Antari let out a soft breath when the buckle closed that stirred Holland truly to life.

“It’s about what I choose to give you anyway.” Kell’s voice was a murmur, and he rubbed the palms of his hands over Holland’s knees, then slid them slowly up the insides of his thighs, fingertips brushing over the fabric of his pants. “This… this is what I want to do.”

“For me?” Holland asked, Kell’s smile widened, a flash of even white teeth. His hands pulled back and away, and Holland felt a pang of regret more physical than emotional at the sudden lack of touch, only to watch Kell raise his hands to undo the buttons to his shirt, one by one, staring Holland right in the eyes as he did. 

When he slid the shirt off his shoulders, it was Holland’s turn to swallow hard. He reached out without looking to grab the leather cord from where it still lay on the book, turning back to Kell to clip the little silver clasp on the ring at the front of his throat. 

“I want to do this for  _ us, _ ” Kell said softly. “Not an order, or a command. I just-”

“-want to,” Holland finished, sliding off the chair onto his own knees, pulling the leash taut and taking Kell’s chin to kiss him. At first it was a slight soft press of lips, and he pulled back to whisper, “I want to, as well.”

Then he kissed him again, and this time he did not intend to stop until they both were desperate for air.

Holland wound the leather cord around his hand until hardly any space separated the two of them, Kell’s breath hitching at the slight pressure that wanted to pull him forward, but there were no orders given, only the soft press of lips, the warmth of skin on skin.

Holland knew his own body’s warmth felt faded, to Kell, that he was always a little colder. Kell felt like a wildfire under his mouth, against the fingers that left his chin to slide down his neck and over the bare chest.

Kell was a riot of color and warmth and life, and as Holland’s fingertips grazed across and then, just slightly, scratched at sensitive skin, he became a riot of sound, as well. Soft at first - whispered encouragements and low noises, louder when Holland’s free hand traveled down over his navel, teased at the waist of his pants. 

“Not yet,” He murmured, and abruptly pulled back, pushing himself to his feet, pulling Kell up by the cord along with him. There was a half-grin on Kell’s face, but his eyes were locked on Holland, blue-and-black, intensely focused. 

“What, then?” 

Holland moved with the easy certainty of someone who had memorized every single stone that made up this room a long, long time ago, shifting around the chair and back towards the bed, finally leaning his back up against one of the four carved wooden posters. He still held the cord in his hand, and his mouth was some strange mix of dry and watering at the sight of Kell pulled by it, willingly.

Had put the damn thing in front of him himself.

_ “På dine knæ, min kæreste,”  _ Holland breathed, his voice low and deep. He had learned the trick of it, and while he gave the order, it was not quite a command, not enough to spur the brand on his back to force him into anything.

So when Kell slid back down to his knees, it was something he did all on his own, and Holland’s already hardening cock came fully to life at the sight of the lanky, long-limbed man looking up at him with one wide blue eye, one glossy black one.

“Yes, sir,” Kell whispered, and shot him a real, sincere grin.

Then he reached up, undoing the buttons at the front of Holland’s pants, slipping them down over his hips, nuzzling and mouthing along his hips and between his legs. Holland knew Kell had caught the gasp he tried to bite back behind his teeth, because he heard him huff out soft laughter, sliding a hand up over his cock and closing those warm, warm fingers around it, rubbing his thumb gently back and forth along the shaft just under the head.

“ _ Guder under, du er et syn.” _

Kell paused, just as he’d leaned forwards, looking back up at him, meeting Holland’s single green eye with his own blue. “What?"

His accent had gone too thick, to Common, too much the accent of the street children in the Kosik he'd grown up with, for Kell to understand the words.

“I said you’re… you’re a sight.” His voice was a little ragged, but it was as much with what he wanted to say, and couldn’t force himself to, as it was with desire.  _ I could not call you beautiful, but that is what you are. I cannot say what I think about you. _

“I’m about to be a better one,” Kell said, and took Holland into his mouth, using his hand to guide it. The warmth and the  _ heat _ was enough to make Holland’s knees nearly buckle, and he buried his free hand into the bright copper hair, curling over Kell, keeping one hand wrapped around the cord and pulled tight, so that Kell could feel thepressure of it every second.

Kell’s tongue pressed against him, moved back, pressed forwards again, and Holland pulled hard on the red hair, earning a hummed moan in response.

Holland’s fractured, sparkling thoughts briefly considered  _ As Convenit _ , but dismissed it just as quickly. They didn’t need to combine blood tonight. This was enough - was more than enough. Desire did not always have to be a blade against your skin, no matter what the last seven years of life had tried to make him believe. 

The vibration of the sounds Kell made mixed with the heat of his mouth, the way he took the weight of Holland on his tongue, the movements of his hips - he couldn’t hold his own sounds back, and between Kell’s low hummed moans and Holland’s soft constant whispered Maktahn endearments, the stone walls around them drank in something nearly obscene.

But no.

It was what happened elsewhere in this dead white palace that was obscene.

What happened in _ this  _ room was… right.

_ “Du er smuk, du føler dig så god, du er så god, så smuk…”  _ Holland moaned the words more than spoke them, his spine curving more and more as the pleasure rolled through him, thigh muscles tense to keep himself standing, both of Kell’s hands now pressed against them to steady himself against the gentle thrusting of Holland’s hips, the cock in his mouth and nearly to his throat. 

Just as the heat of Kell’s mouth, the wet of his tongue, made the warmth in Holland’s core coil, and build, just as his movements became shallow and quicker, he stilled himself all at once, took Kell’s hair back in his hand, and pulled him off with a soft pop of sound.

Kell breathed hard, mouth reddened and wet, panting. “Y-you’re not, not going to?”

“Not yet,” Holland said, using the leash to pull him back to his feet - plus one hand to his shoulder to steady him, to make the movement easier and more graceful. 

When he kissed Kell this time, he could taste himself on the younger man’s lips, on his tongue. Strange, how such a taste could become something you craved in someone else - stranger still that he chased that taste with Kell, specifically.

But then all his interactions with Kell Maresh had always taken him unexpected places.

He yanked on the leash and Kell moved forward quickly against him, and it was Kell who ground their hips together with a low soft moan of his own, Kell who put his hands around Holland’s waist to shift him to the bed. 

But it was Holland who turned and pushed Kell back onto his back to lie there. It was Holland who took Kell’s pants all the way off first, leaving him in nothing but the black leather around his neck, the cord that laid across his pale chest and stomach, pushing himself up on his elbows to look up into Holland’s eyes with that same half-grin on his face. “This?” He asked, head tilting so hair fell back over his black eye.

“This,” Holland confirmed, and moved away from him. “Stay, for the moment.” There was a bottle of oil by the bed, now, on the table, and he picked it up without hesitation, even as he shifted himself out of his own pants, letting them puddle into meaningless cloth on the floor. 

When he turned back, he heard Kell’s caught breath at the sight of him, and there was a quiet, private smile playing across his face when he looked back to the redhead and it was not his  _ eyes  _ that Kell was looking at. 

“Did you think you would feel this way to look at me, when you were a prince in Arnes?” He asked, pouring a little cool oil onto his fingers, rubbing them together to warm them, to slick them up.

Kell laughed, a little breathlessly, letting his head fall back into the bed as Holland moved to him, slid one hand around behind his knee to bend it back until it was nearly at his chest. “You might n-not believe it, but yes.”

Holland stilled, holding him just as he was, and looked down at him. “Really?”

Kell grinned at his surprise. “Once or twice. Rhy always said I had a weakness for you.”

Holland broke his pause, bent Kell’s leg the rest of the way, and leaned over him, looking over the flush on his pale white skin, the  _ color _ of him. Freckles stood out like constellations, there was a scattering of red hair that trailed in a thin line that slowly widened from his navel downwards. Kell was hard, and ready for him, and Holland had no idea how they had gone from hatred to this.

With the first finger that slid into him, Kell’s back arched, the muscles of his stomach shifted under his skin, and he groaned, his hands moving up into his own hair to pull at it. Holland caught his breath, at the sight. 

_ “Jeg er ikke sikker på jeg nogensinde kunne være en god nok mand til at fortjene dig…” _

“Wh-what?” Kell asked, his voice thin, and then he moaned when one finger became two. “I can’t… understand the kind of Maktahn you sp, speak…” 

Holland only shook his head, pushing in a little further, searching for what he knew was there. He understood men, as well as he understood women - he’d only sought out a few lovers in his life, but Kell was not the first man.

And there was at least one man Holland would never count, if asked, but who had been an education as well.

“It doesn’t matter,  _ Kæreste, _ ” He murmured, and there - his fingers curved just the right way and Kell nearly lifted himself off the bed with a sudden cry. “All that matters, for the moment, is this.” He moved his fingers again, pushing in and pulling back, feeling a kind of pleasure that came entirely from watching the tall, lanky man twist around on his fingers, push his hips down to try and push Holland in deeper, thrust his hips up. 

Listening to the way his cries grew louder, and louder, bounced off the stone. Probably rang out down the halls, by now, with only the Mindless to hear them.

And each and every sound he made - every sight of his fingers twisting into the heavy woven blankets - the way the scent of the room began to change… all of it made him think perhaps he should be grateful to Astrid for the gift she had given him.

It had not been a life to ruin at all, but something different that he had not known he needed to find. Or at least had no longer thought he could.

When he thought Kell was ready - or, if he were honest with himself, when Kell’s cries turned from wordless to  _ please please please _ , begging that he couldn’t quite resist - Holland took his own hard cock in hand to guide it, pressing against Kell, hesitating for just a moment. “You’re ready for me?” He asked.

It took such self-control to hold himself still, in this moment, nearly there.

But he waited until Kell’s blue eye was back on his, and he gasped out a “Yes” that sounded more like benediction, to Holland, than assent.

_ Here is your sin, Kell Maresh,  _ he managed to think as he pressed himself in, bit by bit, taking it slow, gentle, listening to Kell’s breathing speed up, pressing one hand against his chest, briefly, to feel the pounding of his heart.  _ You bring me a collar and a leash and ask me, your captor, to put them on you. Here is your sin - you want me. _

When he was all the way in, his thoughts shattered apart under the pressure, the heat, the tightness that was everywhere around him all at once. The two of them in some kind of stasis, a fraction of a second, before he took the leash in hand and pulled it tight again.

Kell smiled at him, his blue eye hazy with desire, and said, “Pull it tight.”

Holland couldn’t quite keep back his groan. 

He was on his knees on the bed, Kell’s leg still bent up, and when he pulled back and then thrust back in, Kell arched his back again and bent both legs, reaching out to pull Holland close to him even as Holland wrapped the cord again and again around his hand, keeping it taut, keeping the pressure of the line between them.

Kell’s warm legs wrapped around his waist, angled his hips up, so every thrust hit perfectly. He was warmth and life personified in a nearly-dead world, and Holland’s careful, controlled rhythm began to falter far more quickly than he’d hoped - not that either of them minded, not when Holland thrust harder, not when his other hand found Kell’s own cock and began to pump in time with his thrusts, as best he could.

His mind was a haze of affection unashamed, and he whispered  _ Jeg elsker dig, kæreste _ without knowing it, without being aware of the words, and whatever Kell said back to him - and oh, he spoke and cried out and moaned all kinds of words - Holland did not hear those, either.

He heard nothing but the sound of their skin together, but the beating of his own heart. 

Kell came first, spilling onto his own stomach and nearly up to his chest, Holland’s hand moving with the slick of it to keep Kell strung out on pleasure until he could find his own edge and move over it, thrusting hard and deep, coming inside of him with one single wordless, loud, deep-voiced cry of his own.

When they finally came to stop, Holland’s hand was wound so tightly in the cord that his faded white skin was reddened with marks from it, and he could see identical red marks under the collar on Kell’s neck, on the sides, where he had pulled too tightly. 

Neither of them cared.

Holland usually moved himself away, immediately. This time, he moved further into the bed, and as Kell’s arms went out to him, he let them encircle his neck, let the redhead pull him down into the bed.

Let himself rest there, for a moment, with a pounding heart and languid limbs.

_ I don’t care what we are to each other now,  _ Holland Vosijk thought, a wild irrational thought he would disavow later when all his caution and sense returned to him, listening to Kell’s slowly calming breaths against his ear.  _ I am happy I found this.  _ Kell’s fingers that began to play, idly, with his faded charcoal hair.  _ I am happy, in this moment, and I have not been happy in so long. _

He slid to the side, to lay next to him, and heard Kell murmur something soft and sweet against his hair. He kept his eyes closed, allowed himself to fully relax, to breathe.

To trust.

_ Here is my sin, Kell Maresh - I love you. _


End file.
